Is Hearing Believing?
by DeniseV
Summary: A series of missing moments, scenes and a tag for the third season episode 'Echoes'. Rodney's feeling quite touched by his friends before, during and after his injury.


_(Original dialogue from the episode 'Echoes', written by Carl Binder, appears in italics)_

**THE HALLWAY…**

_"All right then, boys, dabble away."_

_"So, these, uh whales. Did the Ancients say they're good eating?_

_"Oh, you wouldn't."_

_"I would."_

McKay watched Sheppard for a few more steps and then said, "Ah. I get it. Kidding. Again. I never see it coming." A few steps later he added, more to himself, "I don't mind saying that I find that a little worrisome."

"Wasn't kidding," John retorted with a grin. As they reached the next hallway, the colonel turned left, almost knocking the scientist to the floor.

"What?" Rodney asked.

"Sorry," John apologized, and then added, "Lunchtime," by way of explanation.

"What about Sam?"

"Don't call him that."

"Why?" Rodney asked.

John ignored him. "Call me when you have something. I'm gonna go have the chef work up some nice whale recipes," Sheppard said as he took McKay's elbow in the very similar manner that Weir had just minutes before. "You okay?"

Talk about whiplash. "Yes, I'm fine, and, ew, that's gross. No wonder you don't want to name him."

"Sure you're not hungry?"

"Not anymore," McKay replied sourly.

"Call me," John reminded as he headed away.

Rodney nodded silently to Sheppard's back. He walked toward the lab, feeling his right elbow with his left hand. "Hm," he said to himself with a pleased smile as he hurried to fit in some more time on his whale research.

**IN THE LAB…**

_"Hah, there you are. You are not gonna believe this. I've been monitoring Sam on the underwater scanner…"_

_"Stop calling him that."_

_"Why?"_

_"It's creepy."_

_"No it's not. Look, here he is, circling the city. He's been doing it for a while. Won't leave."_

_"You didn't feed him, did you?"_

_"No. Look. Now, if I widen the scan…"_

_"Huh, another whale."_

_"Yeah. Probably the mother."_

_"I'd guess the size of a football field."_

_"Uh, Canadian football field."_

_"So, the first one was a baby."_

_"Yeah."_

_"Wanna take a closer look?"_

_"Uh-oh…"_

Rodney followed John quickly. "Wait."

"What's wrong?" Sheppard asked, frowning at McKay's seeming reluctance, but pretty sure what it might be about.

"Um, well, I haven't done my best work in jumpers under the water, that's all."

There you go. "You'll be fine. We're not going that far down. Plus, I need you there to help me check things out." Rodney didn't look particularly appeased. "Come on." The look John gave his friend told McKay that everything would be okay.

"I need to get my Dramamine," Rodney said, giving John the go-ahead.

The colonel patted McKay on the back, smiled and then moved forward quickly, before Rodney could change his mind. "Meet you there!" Sheppard called back as he headed to the jumper bay and McKay headed to his room.

**IN THE JUMPER…**

_"We're out of the water. Rodney's in trouble. Have a medical team ready."_

_"Already done."_

**IN THE JUMPER BAY…**

Sheppard landed the Ancient craft in the jumper bay as fast as he could. He opened the rear compartment to let the medical team in and then jumped from his seat to evaluate McKay's condition.

"Rodney?" he asked as he went down on his knees next to his unconscious friend. He looked to his right to see Carson and other medical personnel first in line as the door opened fully. He looked back to Rodney, placing his hand on the scientist's back. He pushed a little, trying to jostle his teammate awake. "McKay." He was yelling, though he hadn't yet picked up on that fact.

"Colonel? Step away so that I can get a look at him," Dr. Carson Beckett ordered as he neared the cockpit.

"McKay, come on. Wake up, will ya?" John urged, a worried strain in his voice.

"Colonel?" Beckett asked again. No response put a little more worry into the Scot's face. "He can't hear," Carson noted to one of the medical assistants. The physician shook John's arm. Sheppard turned his attention to Beckett. "John!" Carson said loudly. "I need to get in there!"

"What?" he asked with a yell. Sheppard stood up, but immediately swayed forward into Beckett.

"Steady. Grab him and walk him down to the gurney," Carson instructed.

"What?" John asked again, very loudly, followed by, "Rodney's ears and nose were bleeding before he passed out." The yelling was deafening in the small confines of the jumper's cockpit. "Why'd he pass out?" the colonel asked as he weaved into one of the assistants.

"I shouldna think you're too far behind," Carson said loudly, but evidently, not loud enough for John to hear.

"What?" he asked, pulling his arms out of the assistant's grasp.

Beckett turned away from McKay. Though he hated to waste the time, he knew he needed to get Sheppard to calm down and lie down and let him do his job.

"John, please go with the orderly!" Carson yelled.

"I can't hear!" John answered.

"I know!" the physician yelled back. Carson Beckett took a deep breath and then calmly, and loudly, said, "I need to see to Rodney!" He put his hands to his eyes like binoculars and then pointed to McKay.

"Oh! Right!" John looked at Rodney with apprehension as he walked out of the jumper. His own ears bleeding seemed to bother him far less than seeing the still unconscious scientist.

"Rodney?" Carson asked, shaking his friend's arm gently. Atlantis' chief medical officer saw the blood that had streamed down McKay's left ear. He stood, leaned over, and saw a similar line of red coming from the other one. He called back without looking, "Hand me some wipes and a collar." Carson kneeled back down and said, "Rodney!" Very loudly. Everyone nearby, everyone in the vicinity of the jumper bay would have heard Rodney's named called.

Eventually, Rodney seemed to as well. Or maybe all of the movement from having the cervical collar placed around his neck woke him. Or the dabbing of the wet wipes that Carson used to clean up some of the blood had roused him.

"Nnnnngh," he said, followed by, "Ow. My head." McKay's eyes popped open and his head shot up. "Ow," he said, followed by a louder, "Ow!" He looked at Carson as he swayed and said, "Didn't I just say…I can't hear!"

"Calm down, Rodney. Let me clean some of this blood…"

Rodney was watching Beckett's face, or rather, his lips, intently. His eyes grew wide as he recognized the dreaded word.

"Blood?" McKay asked worriedly, and then as though remembering, he put his hand up to his nose.

"Rodney! Let's get to the infirmary and see what's going on!"

The physicist watched Carson speak and seemed to get the gist of it. "Yes, yes! Oh my god! I can't hear myself talk!"

"Don't get too carried away! It's probably temporary!"

Rodney looked around. "Where's Sheppard?" he yelled.

"He's outside waiting for you to get a move on!" McKay again watched Carson's mouth. He could hear, he was relieved to note, but was a little scared that he needed to read lips to understand anything.

"Oh!"

"Gents?" Carson asked, the orderlies appearing swiftly with a second gurney. "Rodney, just relax," Beckett said.

"What?" Carson shook his head and proceeded to help Rodney onto the bed on wheels. The gurney was then rolled out of the jumper.

"You okay?" a worried John Sheppard yelled to McKay.

"What?" Rodney shouted. "I can't hear!"

"What?"

Beckett turned to look at one of his orderlies. "This had best be temporary." To himself he mumbled, "I'd hate to be the one to finally kill one of them. I was sure that Radek or Ronon, or even Elizabeth would have gotten to it before me." The assistants looked on as though the CMO nattering to himself was standard operating procedure. Carson walked with the two riding patients to the infirmary. He kept one hand comfortingly on Rodney's shoulder and tapped his radio with the other. "Elizabeth, we're on our way. I'll call you when I know something."

"How do they look?" she asked anxiously.

"Rodney's conscious now, which is very good." Keeping his hand on his friend's arm seemed to be having a calming effect. "They're both bleeding from the ears. Rodney seems to be bleeding a bit more, but that's about par for the course." Carson saw Rodney looking at him, a frown telling him that the physicist was working hard to try to understand. He was going to give himself a worse headache if he kept that up.

"Apparently," she said, relieved to hear Carson joking. He didn't seem too worried, and that had to be a good sign.

Beckett leaned close to McKay, a difficult feat as they continued moving quickly toward the infirmary. "Close your eyes! Relax!" Rodney did so immediately, trusting Carson to know what was best.

"Dr. Weir, I think I will go work with Dr. Beckett. These readings will probably help him with his diagnosis and treatment."

"That's good. Thank you, Radek."

**IN THE INFIRMARY…**

"I have called Dr. Weir," Radek said as he stood next to Carson Beckett.

"Good. They really couldn't have experienced a worse combination of events, could they?" Carson asked the Czech scientist. Zelenka raised his eyes over his glasses, challenging the assumption. "Of course, you're right. If the colonel hadn't acted so expeditiously…" He didn't finish the thought.

"It is some bad luck, this time. Who would have thought that an animal would be able to create such a powerful pulse?"

"I don't know about that, Radek. Rodney must have suspected something," Carson said as he watched his two patients sitting quietly next to each other. He thought they might be a little bit in shock at their current situation. It had to be frightening to think that you might be permanently deaf, even for just a moment.

"No. Well, yes, but I believe the colonel just wanted to get a closer look."

"What? You mean just for kicks?"

Zelenka shook his head. "I would not say that, but Rodney never said that they needed to get closer to them. I'm sure now that he wished he had never gone."

"Yes. Well, I guess we're lucky that they did go for their little joy ride. Daft buggers. This data could possibly lead to an explanation for some of these hallucinations that we're experiencing."

"I hope so."

"Dr. Weir," Radek called in greeting as Elizabeth entered the area.

"They're going to be fine," Beckett assured the civilian leader of the Atlantis expedition.

"What's wrong with them?"

_"Their eardrums have been perforated."_

_"How?"_

_"The whales are emitting an intense, low-frequency pulse, like a, a sonar, as well as an EM field. The combination is very dangerous to humans, particularly in such close proximity._

_"It's the whales!"_

**THE BALCONY…**

_"They're gone, Rodney."_

_"Not all of them. Look."_

_"Let me guess. Your buddy Sam?"_

_"Hm. I like to think so. I like to think he's saying goodbye._

_"Makes sense. He saved your life and now you saved his. Now you're even."_

Rodney looked out at Sam for a while longer and then headed in. He stepped in from the balcony to find John Sheppard waiting for him.

"What?" Rodney asked. "Boy it feels good to hear again," he added. It wasn't the first time he'd said it since leaving the infirmary.

John smiled at the comment, as he had each of the half dozen times he'd heard it before. "Just thought I'd give you a few moments alone with Sam."

"Ah. Thanks." Rodney yawned. "Ow."

"Tired?" John asked. He ignored the 'Ow'. He didn't have to ask about that. He was living it.

"Yeah. Carson said we should get more rest."

"Who's he kidding?" Sheppard asked, knowing better, knowing that McKay had spent way too much time reading and researching these last hours. If John's head felt like it wanted to explode, he could only imagine how crappy Rodney was feeling.

"Yes, but he said it would be better for our healing eardrums if we'd give them time to, you know, actually heal."

"Try not to 'jump around like you do', I think he said."

"Nice accent," Rodney complimented the Air Force man.

"I try. Wanna go to bed?" John asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

Rodney rolled his eyes, but otherwise ignored his friend. He pointed out helpfully, "It's four in the afternoon."

"Evening."

"Whatever."

"It's a shame about those recipes."

Rodney yawned again. "I am so tired. Is that a side-effect or something?" John smiled. Rodney didn't even realize how much he'd done since they'd gotten out of the infirmary. Of course he was tired. "And yawning makes my ears hurt. And stop talking about Sam like he's your next meal."

"Apparently he's not."

"Good."

"Come on," John said. "Let's go to bed," he added, pushing Rodney in the direction of the living quarters.

"You know how that sounds, right?"

"Yeah, I'm worried about what these walls might think." Rodney looked at John carefully, concerned with his cavalier attitude. "Who cares?" Sheppard challenged.

"You like to push the envelope, don't you?" McKay asked.

"I'm a pilot," the colonel answered, as though that explained it all.

"Hm." They walked a little more. "It really, really feels good to hear again," Rodney noted as he walked alongside his friend.

"Yeah, that was scary."

"Maybe we can try to avoid the scary for a while?" McKay suggested questioningly.

They came to a 'T' in the hallway. John turned to Rodney and said, "I will if you will."

"Excellent." The scientist smiled, the colonel smiled back. After a slightly awkward silence, McKay said, "I'm gonna go lay down," pointing his thumb in the direction of his room. "Alone."

"Me, too." John went right and Rodney went left to their respective quarters. "I hope Carson doesn't have a coronary when he finds out we listened to him," John added from around the corner. Rodney's smile grew bigger as he headed home. It was right that Sam was heading home to his friends and family. The whale had inadvertently had a hand in helping Rodney get back home the last time, and Rodney had echoed that help for the baby whale this time.

Rodney McKay knew exactly how Sam would feel once he was back where he belonged. He didn't need to be able to hear to know how that felt.

The End.


End file.
